Hall Jackson Kblley 135
pared to dislike KcUey even without Governor Figueroa's con- demnation, on accotint of his published denunciation of the Hudson's Bay Company. He was under no obligation to admit him to the society of the fort, although he would not have him suffer sickness and hunger under the shadow of its walls. The fact that he was an American while giving him a patriotic excuse, if not motive, for ignoring claims on his compassion, also, on the other hand, furnished a politic motive for indulg- ing his natural humanity. For at that time there were several Americans being entertained at Vancouver. . . . The treaty rights of Wyeth were not disputed, nor were the scientific observations of the scholars o[q)osed. It was Kelley, as colon- izer and defamer of the company, who was unwelcome, even after it was evident that there was no stain upon his character.
"This was perfectly understood by Kelley, and it was not McLoughlin's disapproval of him which wounded his sensitive pride. It was the conduct of his own countrjrmen, . . . Nuttall, who was a Cambridge man, was well acquainted with Kelley's writings, owing to them, Kelley believed, his idea of studying the botany of Or^on. But Nuttall, as well as the Lees, thought too highly of his privileges at Vancouver to risk them by acknowledging this fact. And Wyeth, who was not like himself, an educated man, never having learned to spell correctly, or to introduce in his writings capitals and punctua- tion points where they belonged, and who had led as far as Vancouver as many free Americans as had Young and himself — ^Wyeth, who when in Massachusetts was one of his prospec- tive colonists — ^was on the Columbia River utterly indifferent to him.
"This treatment of Kelley by his countrjrmen must have been construed at Vancouver as condemnatory, although its shrewd and magnanimous chief may have guessed a little at its meaning and sought to make amends by unremitting care of the sick and neglected man.'^
This statement may be somewhat unfair as to Nuttall, whoise
ij Victor, Hall J. Kelley, oiie of the fathers of Oregon, Oregon Historical Society, Quarterly, Ih, 393*^
